TikTok is a force to be reckoned with. In a few short years it captured a space so big that was previously thought to be reserved only for the likes of Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. And a few years from now TikTok will probably displace Facebook, Instagram and Twitter combined.
Naturally, with a new player on the ground you’re keen to know how to grow TikTok followers.
This post is your guide to that.
Share Videos That Will Appeal to Your Target Audience
On TikTok if your videos start appearing on the “For You” feed that’s your ticket to getting your video in front of your target audience. Ask any TikToker and the goal is to crack the For you page.
To achieve that you must make sure the videos are appealing to them. Users aren’t really all that interested in watching videos where you advertise your brand. The secret to gaining followers on TikTok, or getting your videos to go viral is the same as with any other platform.
Ensure the product placement is clear without blatantly advertising it.
Think of the types of videos most in line with your target audience. Feature products in your videos.
Capitalize on TikTok Trends
Your TikTok audience is in love with trends. They are generally not in favor of things that have been fashionable for a long period of time.
People on TikTok aren’t specifically looking for your content. They are there to have fun. They like fun videos that are in tune with current trends. This helps you to capitalize on trends and build brand awareness as a result.
One great tip here is to include recommended and trending songs in your video. Unless the song is specific to the video you made, as in an original song, you can opt for the recommended songs.
TikTok’s algorithm is geared towards promoting more of those videos that have trending songs in them as the background score. To market on TikTok you must capture the essence of its algorithm.
TikTok rules the music industry. If you take a look at the Top 100 songs for any random week, chances are that the songs are trending on TikTok too.
That’s no accident. TikTok has deals with record studios to push their artist’s songs to the top.
And hence the vested interest in promoting videos with trending songs in them.
To know which songs are trending use one of the recommended songs from within the app itself. There’s no mystery around this.
Make Use of Hashtags
Hashtags, especially trending hashtags, help you greatly increase TikTok followers in a short time.
Trending hashtags help you get discovered better on the platform. As someone searches for any of these hashtags they might chance on your video.
They may even follow you in the hopes that you will share more of the same content.
Think of the use cases of these hashtags. Some of these hashtags are associated with certain campaigns and may not always be right for you.
TikTok’s hashtags like #fyp and #ForYou will help you gain a spot on the “For You” page.
Consistently Post New Content
When you post quality content on TikTok consistently, your account starts growing.
You don’t need professionals to create these clips. In fact some of the most successful TikTok videos that raked millions of views were shot on a phone.
High-definition videos shot on most regular phones today, a little bit of planning and some basic techniques will help you create those videos.
Plan your Videos
Following trends is fine as long as there’s something original and creative in it. If you’re simply copying what others are doing, there’s nothing in the video content that makes it stand out from others.
So why should it go viral?
Also, remember that for the sake of originality you can’t simply add a lot of extraneous footage and get away with it. TikTok videos are short and crisp, often lasting only a few seconds.
Make that count.
If you’re filming at night use extra lighting.
Music is a critical part of TikTok. The app has rights to use music clips legally on TikTok. Let the music fit in with the video content.
TikTok has filters, transitions, and effects. Use them.
Improve the Quality of your Videos
This isn’t really new advice. You already know this. If you post blurry low-quality videos, your content may never get to the For you page. Blurry videos are no-one’s favorite, no one pays attention to them, no one downloads them.
Good quality content shows as HD videos have great odds of getting on the For you page.
Post Your TikTok Videos at the Right Time for Your Audience
In addition to posting videos regularly you should also post them when the target audience is most likely to be online too.
Remember how TikTok’s algorithm works.
TikTok shares the videos you post with a tiny portion of your target audience through its For you page. If you post when your audience isn’t online there will be very few people showing early interest in these videos. As a result the virality factor of your content will be stunted.
On TikTok analytics you can definitely view the time when people are interested in these videos most. TikTok lets you schedule these videos at any times you choose to.
Run Collaborations
On TikTok people prefer a variety of content. How best to achieve that?
Collaborate with other TikTokers.
If you create a TikTok video with another TikTok personality, that’s two influencers in a single video giving you access to each others’ audiences.
Engage with Your Audience
Social media is incomplete if you forget to be social. TikTok isn’t a one-way street where you can keep posting content night and day and hope to get more followers. To get an engaged following you need to engage with potential followers actively.
Spend your time talking with other Tiktokers. This extends to watching and engaging with their content. Follow these creators. In these ways you can help understand the behavior of your target audience. Like these videos, share them on social media and respond to comments. Keep the conversation alive.
Identify your target audience
To grow your audience on TikTok understand who’s the target of your content. This helps you better craft content they’re most likely to resonate with.
Look at similar influencers in your niche. What are they posting? Think of the content you’re posting on other social media channels like Facebook or Twitter. Take note of the most popular content on those channels and then create your own.
The content you’re going to publish on TikTok is going to be different in both format and core content but you will still find trends, ideas and other aspects that you can learn and use.
Take a survey of your customer persona and think of their likes and dislikes.
What do they want on TikTok?
With some trial and error and effort you will be able to create videos that resonate with the audience.
Create a TikTok challenge
TikTok is another place where video challenges are extremely popular. A TikTok challenge is also great for lead prospecting. You can make signing up to your list a key requirement of joining the challenge.
There are dares people participate in, challenges akin to the ALS Ice bucket challenge, there’s dancing to music. As you go through these videos on TikTok you will encounter one or the other challenge. So you will find inspiration for your brand and create your own TikTok challenge.
Example: E.L.F’s Eyes Lips Face
The #EyesLipsFace was one of the most popular challenges of 2019. Started by e.l.f cosmetics it asks users to share how they look with makeup on.
This built a tremendous deal of brand awareness. The company e.l.f partnered with TikTok to create original sound to go along with the challenge.
Think of the ways you can make use of your product’s features in the videos you post on TikTok challenges.
This challenge for instance was one of the most popular videos they did and introduced their brand to a bigger stage online.
Include the right hashtags
Similar to Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms, hashtags help you discover new content.
But just as hashtags are important, equally relevant is the fact that the right hashtags are just as important.
There are plenty of TikTok users who are lazy in that they use all the trending hashtags and add it to the captions. It isn’t right to do that. It’s actually considered to be a spammy practice.
Only use relevant hashtags to the caption and track the number of views the hashtags are generating. Also include #fyp or #foryou hashtags, if you wish to be featured on the fyp page.
Encourage and share UGC
If and when people share relevant content to your brand or industry, ask them if you can share those videos on your channel too.
When you message them, don’t forget to mention that their name and their account id will be mentioned. Tag them as the creators in the caption.
Here’s one example of user-generated content from the brand The Sill.
What they did is take a video of a customer unboxing a product one of their potted plants.
For their #WhatsYourPower campaign,Netflix used a branded effect that helped people determine what their superpowers were.
The results were different for each user and were designed so as to reflect each person’s unique personality. They were able to share in the campaign generating over 1000,000 videos posted to TikTok.
This is a fantastic way for you to spread the word. With this you can show off happy customers and tell people what to expect when you order.
TikTok influencers are your friends
There are plenty of TikTok users who naturally achieved a great deal of fame. Some of them are relevant to your niche and industry.
Once you board in a few influencers they’re essentially doing the advertising for you.
Brands can reach out to a bigger audience than the ones they have access to by collaborating with influencers. Working with influencers has costs. Ensure that you have a marketing budget and look at micro influencers with engaged audiences on TikTok to start this.
Cross-promote your TikTok videos
Sounds counterintuitive right? I thought as much. But initially when TikTok started its creators and tiny staff followed the exact same strategy.
They took the best videos from TikTok and posted them on Instagram and Facebook and all other channels they could lay their hands on.
It’s a great idea to cross-promote your videos to other social media channels.
YouTube and Instagram and of late Facebook offer avenues to share short form content.
There’s the TikTok logo on thecorner
Use TikTok features to engage your audience
There are a number of TikTok features available for you that can help you generate a higher sense of engagement. You can like, comment and duet with others videos.
Stitching is one of these great TikTok features. With this feature you can append your video to the end of the clip of another user’s video. This is great for adding commentary or more content to a video.
Dueting juxtaposes your video to another’s person;’s video so you can react to that particular user’s video with content from your end.
Stitch or duet videos that are extremely relevant to your rband.
Use CTAs at the end of your videos
If you ask for more followers you might probably get them.
End videos with CTAs that ask users to check out your profile. Or click through to other videos you made.
A text message at the end of the video is one such way to make that possible.
Ideally since TikTok videos are short you can employ this tactic when you’re doing video series or doing multi-part videos.
Knowing How to Grow TikTok Followers
TikTok is one of the most popular social media channels there is and it continues to grow in popularity.
With the tips here you get more engagement, more shares in addition to growing a community and getting more followers. TikTok has over 800 billion monthly active users.
You will find your target audience as long as you create the content they need.
The “For you” page personalizes content for users based on content they watched and liked and also based on accounts they follow. Needless to say, getting on the For you page should be your topmost priority.
Don’t worry if you can’t do all of this at once. Start by focusing on what’s important- building an audience. Creating quality content rich with call to action and publishing it when the audience is online.
Engage with the target audience and slowly you will see a following growing.
Also remember that not all videos will do well. Some will be downright disappointements.
But every now and then the video you posted a few days weeks ago will start trending and will go viral without you doing anything to make that possible.
It happens all the time. Never delete videos because you think they’re under performers.
Also old videos will start netting more views and gain you more followers.
What do you think of the tips and tricks listed here? Do let us know in the comments below.